


What the Water Gave Me

by KissedByNightshade



Category: Bleach
Genre: Drowning, Enchantress Rangiku, F/F, Familiars, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Magic, Mermaid Rukia, Strained Friendships, Trans Character, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 10:05:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15483351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KissedByNightshade/pseuds/KissedByNightshade
Summary: Catharsis is hard to come by in a city of lights. Rangiku enchants herself a bag of holding and skips town to escape the past, only to find that time, distance, and the ocean will not let her escape. Will anything?





	What the Water Gave Me

**Author's Note:**

> I originally started this for MerMay. It turned into Siren June, then just July, because writing anything takes forever. Even so, please enjoy. I expect this to be a three-part fic, ending up around 20k words. Not sure if the rating will go up. Stay tuned.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And every demon wants his pound of flesh  
> But I like to keep some things to myself  
> I like to keep my issues strong  
> It's always darkest before the dawn

The pain never goes away. She finds that it lingers in her chest, blossoming like blood dripping into clear water. Diluted, paled with time and distance, but ever-present, just the slightest traces of iron in the mixture.

After months and years of living with a knife in her gut, Rangiku is starting to come to terms with the idea that maybe she’s forgotten how to be a person. Oh, she knows how to go through the motions. Her work keeps her busy and tired; there’s never enough time to go around, and there’s barely enough money to keep up with her other vices.

She feels like she’s moving too fast and too slow, all at once. Waking up sends her spiraling into a rush of adrenaline, left over from dreams she can’t quite remember. Danger feels safer than sitting still. And why wouldn’t it, when the alternative is being left to the devices of her own mind? She’d rather walk the streets at night. She’d rather go out all alone, sing at the top of her lungs. She’d rather live like Izuru.

Izuru, meanwhile, has practically settled down. It’s unsettling, to watch him ease back into academia like some kind of chameleon. But really, his transformation took place before he had an office at the local university. Ever since he started fucking with Renji and Shuuhei properly, he hasn’t been nearly as available for bad ideas as he used to.

“They’re too good an influence,” she whines to him one day. She’s perched cross-legged on the desk as he sits on a chair nearby, armed with a steaming flask and a scribbled list of alchemical components. He seems like he’s only half-listening, but that’s never dissuaded her before. “Yeah, I know I wanted you to stop doing stupid shit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad. But I need someone to fuck around with, you know!”

“I’ll go out with you, Matsumoto,” he says. Some of the softness beneath his blue eyes is starting to show through again. She wonders if Renji and Shuuhei did that to him, and if perhaps spending less time with her has helped him heal. Too plausible for comfort. She hates the thought. She distracts herself by scanning the titles of some of the books that line the shelves in the study. “All you have to do is ask.”

“ _Well_ , I’m asking, okay?” She comes off as too aggressive, she thinks. Too cheerful. Is that the better side of herself, or the worst? Would she rather be her own unique self, bitter and jealous and haunted and sometimes terribly mean, or would she rather become the bright, cheerful, smiling figure, the one everyone loves, who she is not?

The white-spattered raven on the windowsill squawks, as it always does when she thinks about Gin in its presence. She glowers at it, then looks back at Izuru. He has a smudge of ink on his nose, but it’s kind of cute, so she doesn’t mention it. “Sometime this week. I’m so  _bored_ these days.”

“Have you thought about trying something new?” The seriousness in his eyes is infuriating. As if he has any right to give her advice, to suggest how she might improve herself. “A hobby or something. It might be fun.”

She scoffs. Folds her arms. “I have hobbies, thanks. And what about you, anyway? Aren’t those two taking up most of your time, as well?”

He shrugs. His eyes are blue like the sky, like drowning. “My studies take up my days, mostly.” He holds up a book bound in green leather and laced with illuminations. Next to it, a small plant spindles up from a mound of soil in a glass vial. “Maybe you should take a vacation. Take a break. You’re worrying yourself too much over me, Matsumoto. I’m fine. I promise.”

Another day, another conversation, she might have insisted he come with her, dragged him along on a tour of the countryside. He’s right; this city is too old and cramped and dusty for the likes of them. If Izuru settles down here, then she’ll be dragged down as well, and she’ll never be able to escape. Instead, she resents him. For assuming he has any answers to her life. For assuming The notion of staying in this town for one year, one hour, one minute longer than necessary fills her with the kind of dread that she associates with heterosexuality, and with— 

The raven squawks again. “Maybe I will,” she says, feeling poisonous. Izuru’s gone and healed himself up, and he left her behind while he was at it. “Maybe I won’t come back.”

“Don’t be  _too_ hasty,” he says, looking up, and for the first time his eyebrows crinkle in concern. As if it never even occurred to him to worry about her. “If you don’t come back, how will I know where to find you? How will I know you’re okay?”

“You have Wabisuke,” she hears herself saying. The corvid familiar squawks  at the mention of its name. “You’re smart; you can figure it out.”

When she sweeps out of the office and down the hall, she can feel eyes on her back — but when she turns, there’s no one there. As usual. “Get out of here,” she mutters darkly, and makes a beeline for the front door. 

She feels bad about snapping at Izuru like that, but the truth of her own words weighs on her soul. They were both right; she needs to leave this city. She can never be happy as long as  _he_ keeps haunting her like this.

So she goes to sea.

* * *

The story begins the way that it ends — with a sad girl and more pain than she knows how to understand. It should be self-explanatory from there.

Except, it’s not. Rangiku isn’t sure most days how it came to this point. Her memories are fractured, fragmented, and Izuru doesn’t help much. When they talk about it all, that is. These days, they mostly prefer other topics. Less unpleasant ones.

“Gin,” she says. “Are you there? You piece of shit.”

It shouldn’t surprise her, that he might live on past his own death. She can’t be sure if she’s just imagining things, or if he’s really there. A ghost or a ghoul or a lich or something. Maybe he even got himself necromancied. 

Well, it doesn’t matter to her now, does it. The only thing she wants from him now is for him to go away, and finish dying.

She never needed to come to terms with Gin being an awful person. That much she knew from the beginning. (Maybe not  _how_ awful, but there’s only one person who knows exactly how terrible he really was, and that person is currently imprisoned in the best prison magic can offer, for crimes ranging from mass murder to high treason.) There’s no question of Gin’s terribleness. Her own complicity, though? That’s a different story altogether.

It’s the age-old question: how responsible is she for letting him get so bad? As children, they ran through the streets, side by side, picking pockets and stealing glances through the academy windows. As teenagers, they’d grown apart but still teased each other mercilessly, the way siblings might. As adults, Gin had taken a different path, and she’d watched him go, suspecting but never knowing. And never inquiring.

If she had stayed by Gin’s side throughout all this, what would have changed? Could she have changed things? Would she have seen everything that he was putting Izuru through? Would she have understood how he tried to refract himself through that boy’s eyes? Could she have stopped him? Stopped them?

No one else is putting her on trial for all of this, of course. No one but herself.

So that leaves the living. Rangiku watches her own blue eyes, slightly bloodshot under the lamp light, dart from their reflection in the mirror. Before she transitioned, she’d thought that her eyes were her most beautiful feature; like blue lace agates, icy and intricate. Now, she hates them. They remind her of too many other blue eyes. Of Izuru’s, ocean blue and solemn. And, of course, of Gin’s.

Izuru deserves to be a person all on his own. She deserves to be a person all on her own. And really, she is proud of him. For finding himself. For finding someone (two someones) to love him, even if he’s still figuring out how to care for himself. 

She’s just bitter that he was able to not need her before she could say the same. 

“Fuck off, Gin,” she tells the mirror, before extinguishing the lamp and leaving her bathroom. It will be good for her to leave. She’s heard that ghosts are bound to places, not people; she’s not sure she believes it. But she’ll try anything. 

At the very least, she can let herself become a separate person from Izuru. Maybe the two of them being apart will rip Gin’s ghost in half. Ghost execution. If she gave an iota of a fuck about academia, she might be inclined to write some sort of paranormal paper about the whole thing. ‘The Miasma of the Spirit: How to Kill Your Douchebag Ex-Friend Twice’. 

But anyway. Vacation. Escape. Murdering a murderer twice. She has goals, and she has a task list to get there.

* * *

She enchants her suitcase with a pocket dimension big enough for her important things. It’s a convenience, really; she knows how to pack for a long trip. But pocket dimensions are couture, and her suitcase is in-fashion, so if she tests it out and it works, maybe she’ll make it part of her stock for the next season.  
  


Closing up shop is a simple affair; all she has to do is lock the doors and put up a sign, which says “On vacation. Direct all inquiries next door,” in a calligraphic font. 

Momo is elbow-deep in fertilizer when Rangiku walks in, her hair tied back in a messy bun. She looks better, too. All of them do, even with scars (visible and not) just under the surface. Nearby, a morning glory plant cranes its vines slowly up as if to peer at her, and Rangiku ducks out of the way as the fan of an enormous flytrap tries to snap down upon her hair. 

Momo rushes over. “ _Don’t_ antagonize the residents, Rangiku-san! You know the rules.” Then she turns to the plant and adds, “And you! You know better, naughty boy.”

If the plant… creature… responds at all, Rangiku can’t tell. She tosses her hair as if nothing had happened. “Not antagonizing, Momo-chan! You know I would  _never_.”

Even with hands propped on hips, Momo doesn’t exactly look intimidating, per say, thanks to her minute height. She shakes her head. “Anyway. Are you leaving, Rangiku? So soon? You just decided to take a vacation, like, yesterday.”

“Two days ago, actually! That’s all the time I need.” Rangiku never has been one to wait for silly things like reason or logic to kick in. She reaches out to stroke the petal of one of the morning glory blossoms, which sleepily nuzzles her finger. “I can’t stay forever, Momo.”

Momo bites her lip. “No one’s saying you have to, but… what are you hoping to find? And why  _now_? Did something happen?”

Rangiku walks between the rows of plants a little ways. She doesn’t like this line of conversation, and she doesn’t like Momo prying into her personal life. Who is she to have any say in what Rangiku does or doesn’t do with her time, or with her money? Her business is a modest success, her friends are happy, and her old antagonist-slash-pseudo-brother is dead and buried. Problem solved. Another happy ending.

“Nothing happened. And I’m not having this conversation with every single person I tell I’m leaving, okay?” Rangiku shoulders her bag and swipes a couple of enchanted blossoms from the counter to put in her hair. Momo charms the plants to relinquish their blossoms whole with the promise of fertile soil, and then she spells the separated flowers to hold their form and beauty without wilting. “Look, I just stopped by to let you know, and to give you the key to the shop. If anyone wants to buy something, let them take a look around, okay?”

At least burglary isn’t a problem. No one in their right mind would break into an enchantress’s boudoir. 

She hears Momo sigh, then relent. Just as she knew she would. “Alright, Rangiku, but promise me you’ll take care of yourself, okay? It’s one thing to go on vacation to find yourself, but you can’t let yourself fall into bad habits.”

 _Hypocrites. All of them._  “You worry too much, dear~” she says, and the door chimes behind her as she pushes the flower shop door open, and then shut.

The street bustles around her, a late spring breeze tousling her hair. Rangiku sighs. She’s being so cruel, but can she help it? Probably, if she tries hard enough. 

She doesn’t want to help it. She  _wants_ something that they all have, something she doesn’t. Envy crawls up her skin like scales, and she shakes her hands like flicking water off her fingertips. She is filled with wrath and she is so, so empty. So, so hungry.

She will go to sea. And then she will find what it is she’s been craving.

* * *

Rangiku charters passage on a ship called  _Masquerade_. A medium-sized cargo freighter,  _Masquerade_ sways in the breeze, her rows of sails looking as intimidating as her captain, a man called Muguruma. 

When she told him she didn’t care that he wasn’t running a passenger ship, that she just wanted to get out and that she’d pay and even help on board, he’d looked at her funny. “Have you even been  _on_ a cargo ship before?” he’d asked, crossing his not-insignificant arms. “It’s not comfortable. Nice lady like you, you’d be right at home on one of those cruise liners–”

She wanted to yell at him for patronizing her, but honestly? He was probably right. The longest she’s been away from land was on a three-hour airship flight to the next city over. She gets nauseated at the rocking of a wagon on a bumpy incline. And it’s not like she doesn’t have the coin. 

But she wasn’t here for a vacation, but a  _departure_. “I don’t care,” she said. “How much do you want? I can pay up front.”

He looked at her for a long time through narrowed, puzzled eyes. That chiseled brow never unfolded from its perpetual wrinkle. “That won’t be necessary. Just… be ready to leave tomorrow morning, alright?”

And so, here she is.

Morning means something different to sailors, she’s heard. They wake when the sun rises, set sail when the tide carries them. She makes sure to be at the docks while it’s still dark, and her instinct was correct. A handful of men load crates into the hold, overseen by the captain. Nearby, a young woman, approximately her age, pesters him, before he seems to dismiss her and she scampers off. 

“You came,” he says as she approaches. She has a single suitcase with her, as well as a calico cat who sits perched on top as she drags her luggage. He notices and pauses. “A cat, eh? That’ll earn its keep on a ship. How does it feel about water?”

“Haineko? Oh, about as good as I do,” Rangiku says, truthfully. The familiar hisses. They recall readily enough their shared reams about drowning, about storm. Diviners have all sorts of ideas about what water means, but Rangiku thinks it’s all bullshit. Water means water. That’s all. “So when are we taking off?” Changing the subject has always been her modus operandi for uncomfortable situations.

Muguruma turns away, glances back at his crew. “Soon enough,” he says. “I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping, ‘fore we set off.” 

“Great!” Rangiku says, beaming. “So, where are we going first?”

The captain stares at her. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks finally, before turning and climbing the ramp into the ship.

It’s about what she expected. Small, weather-worn, dimly lit by magical torches to avoid burning the whole place to ash, it’s nonetheless tidy, even sparsely decorated. Inlaid strips of bamboo keep the other woods from warping too much, and the boards underfoot echo hollowly. 

“Like I said, not comfortable,” he says as they walk. “Call me Kensei, by the way, none of that ‘captain’ nonsense. Mess hall’s through there, bridge is up that way. Oh, and the privy’s aft, very back of the hallway and down the stairs.” 

Kensei seems a quiet man, much smaller than he’d looked from far away with his back turned against the wind. Maybe a man who is just good at his job, good enough that even the rowdiest sailors trust him not to lead them astray. 

“This is quite the operation, for a small ship like this,” she comments. He’s stopped in front of one of the cabin doors, but she presses on. “What kinds of things do you transport, even?”

“You mean, besides oddball passengers with no destination?” His hand twists the doorknob, and the door creaks open. “Confidentiality, for one.”

Okay, fair point. She looks past Kensei into the cabin — two beds, one on each wall, a set of drawers, and not much else. No port-hole, which eases Rangiku’s sense of vertigo. And no other person, despite the clearly-used sheets slung across one of the beds.

“You’ll be sharin’ with Lisa,” Kensei says. “Hope that’s alright. She’s… well. She’s nice enough.”

‘Nice enough’ sounds suspicious, phrased like that, but she has no room to complain. After all, she practically beggared her way onto this freighter. “Thanks!”

“Don’ mention it.”

“So…” She wants to ask more questions. She wants to keep Kensei there as long as possible, to fend off the loneliness at her door once more. “When’s dinner?”

“Around sunset, most nights,” he says, turning to leave her anyway. “Assuming nothing more important happens. After all, I’m the one who makes it.”

* * *

The gentle rocking of the room is her only indication of the ship’s departure. At such an early hour, there’s nothing to see, Rangiku presumes, so she allows Haineko to wander, curls up on the bed next to her suitcase, and goes to sleep.  
Some hours later, she wakes to a stranger in her room, turned away. She sees a black braid snake down her back, a skirt hiked to the knee over long stockings. Rangiku tries to close her eyes, but…

“So you’re our little stowaway,” the woman says, neglecting even to turn around. “I wondered what kind of wizard would have a cat for a familiar. Now I know.”

“What’s  _that_ supposed to–”

“Yadomaru Lisa.” An unexpected hand makes an entrance, and Rangiku looks between her spectacled roommate and her hand before sitting up and shaking it. She realizes belatedly that Lisa has Haineko cradled in her off arm. “For the record, I’m not a wizard. I just make a point of studying them.”

“Studying them?” Rangiku still has her hackles raised from the cat comment. “What, are you some kind of doctor?”

“Of a sort,” Lisa says. She drops Rangiku’s hand but lingers in her personal space. “Sociology, anthropology, psychology. Wizards are an interesting bunch. Did you know that nine out of ten are unstable, and in spite of their seeming obsession with immortality, they actually have an average lifespan ten years less than your average population?”

“That sounds fake but okay,” says Rangiku.

“The difference is that most people don’t get killed, but wizards tend to get themselves murdered enough to where it stops being an outlier. Adventurers, to be fair, have even worse luck, so at least you all have that going for you.” She pushes the glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Anyway, I don’t think your familiar likes being on a boat very much. I found her slinking around, trying to find a good place to hide. Or maybe a mouse. What’s her name? Usually the behavior of familiars mimics the internal desires of their masters, you know.”

Cut to Haineko, who presses her smoke-grey face against Lisa’s bosom and purrs loudly. Rangiku glares at her cat, who doesn’t cease even for a second. “She’s Haineko, and she’s… more independent than that.”

“I see.” Lisa pries Haineko’s face from her chest and sets the cat on the floor. “Well, I just came down here to grab something, but it’s about noon, so you should think about going to get some lunch before it’s all gone.” She pushes the glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I have a feeling this will be a…  _productive_ … relationship.” And she is gone.

Rangiku looks down at Haineko, who stares back at her. “Mrrr,” the cat croons, jumping onto the bed next to Rangiku. Haineko never solicits pets from her, but does appear to seek them whenever Rangiku gets a bad feeling. Since this is not one of those times, she merely watches the feline familiar sidle up the side of the cot to nestle on her pillow, looking pointedly at Rangiku’s book of spells. 

“Alright, alright, I’ll study a little, alright?” She sighs and picks up the tome. An enormous book, hand-crafted back when she had started to study enchantment. Most of it is empty still. Rangiku wonders if she will ever have the time, energy, or desire to fill it.

Even so. Where a normal cat might want fish or rodents for a meal, familiars require no tangible sustenance but will lose their ability to take corporeal form for lack of an arcane source. Rangiku sits cross-legged, props open the spell book on her knees, and flips through the pages like browsing a recipe book. “Ah, here’s one,” she says. “Better get up, unless you want a cold backside.”

The ritual magic comes second nature to her. Regardless of whether her motivation is knowledge, power, or material, creating enchanted objects for a living has given her endurance and talent. She draws the energy out of another plane with the flick of her wand, and Haineko’s tail flicks in kind as the pillow glows blue and then crisps over with frost.

“There,” Rangiku says. “No more flipping it over to get to the cold side, eh?”

The enchantment itself will wear off for lack of runes, but not for a long while. Not until she is well off this ship. And in the meantime, Haineko basks in the crackling air and almost seems to glow herself.

* * *

Lisa isn’t a terrible roommate, as it turns out. Days pass, soaked up into the sea, and Rangiku learns some unexpected things about her.

“I transitioned when I was a teenager. I was like, fifteen,” she comments one evening. Rangiku had conjured up a little rain shower in the washroom to wash the salt and sand out of her hair, and now she lounges on her cot, staring at the ceiling. It’s been over a week since she’s seen anything but ocean on the horizon.

“I was like fifteen, but I already knew everything about myself.” Lisa chuckles. “At least, I thought so. How old were you, anyway?”

Rangiku isn’t sure she should answer, isn’t sure how Lisa even  _knows_ about that. Then again, Lisa seems to know just about everything. “I was 19.”

She nods. She seems to have expected such an answer. “They warn you they’re using your life-force for that magic, the transfiguration, but it didn’t matter to me. Still doesn’t.”

Lisa isn’t the only interesting person on board, not by a long shot. And based on Rangiku’s initial experiences with most of them, it’s a wonder that Kensei has time for anything other than wrangling them, let alone helming the ship and cooking the meals. 

There’s Mashiro, who introduces herself over beef stew on the first night as Kensei’s second-in-command. Or, rather, Lisa introduces her as such; Mashiro herself, the green-haired girl who she had seen pestering Kensei before, skips over to Haineko and scoops her up before she can attempt to squirm out of her grasp. “Kitty!” she squeals, and before long she has Haineko purring and flung around the back of her neck like a scarf.

“Mashiro’s a goofball, but don’t mistake her,” Lisa says. “There’s no one the captain would rather have at his side when the seas get rough.”

There’s Love and Rose, who spend the second day showing her how to play a version of poker that they invented to make it more… ‘exciting’, to use Rose’s word for it. “If you’re using tarot cards, you can ascribe meaning to your wins and losses! It’s like a tarot spread in itself-”

“He just wants to take all your money,” Love says plainly, causing Rose to give him a scandalized look. “Not that you won’t get the hang of it. He just cheats. A  _lot_.”

There’s Shinji, who actually owns the tarot cards and comes over before dinner to swipe them back. “Gettin’ acquainted, lass?” His teeth seem to be stretched in a perpetual, eerie grin. “It’s pretty forward to handle a man’s tarot cards before you’ve even learned his name.” 

The marmoset on his shoulder swings down under his arm to get to his other side, then squawks at her. “Oh? That’s rude, Sakanade.”

Rangiku crosses her arms and smirks. “Did your familiar tell you that I’m not interested?” she says. “Because it’s right.”

“If Shinji was interested in everyone he flirted with, he’d never come out of his bedroom,” Rose slides in slyly. His familiar, a beautiful white egret, is too large to fit in the mid-ship canteen where the crew and passengers take their meals. “Don’t mind him, though,” he adds. “It’s just habit at this point.”

“Otoribashi,” Shinji says, his smile falling a bit. “You’re getting on my nerves.”

“What have I told you assholes about fighting?” All of them jump. For a man so large, Kensei had managed to effortlessly sneak up on them. He has a tray with three massive roasted chickens splayed on it. “We’ll only have perishable meals for about three more days. If you want fresh meat before the next time we hit port, you’d better behave yourselves.”

“Aw, don’t be so harsh, captain,” Rose says. “We can’t help it, after all. Surely you could think of… another punishment?”

Kensei sets down the chickens so that he can cross his arms and narrow his eyes. Rangiku watches their battle of wills and wonder what is behind the verbal sparring. As if in response, Haineko yowls and leaps onto the table, and none of them even flinch.

Finally, Kensei disappears to fetch a stack of plates. “You two are on dishes tonight,” he tells Love and Rangiku. “We’re putting down anchor tomorrow, so save up the leftovers. We’ll catch ourselves some fish with them.”

Later, up to her elbows in soapy water, Rangiku glances over to where Love is scraping off food scraps with a grimace. “Who are those guys, anyway?” she asks casually. “They don’t act like sailors. Or look like them. At all.”

Love gives her a look. “Can’t you tell?” he says. “We’re mercenaries. Why else would you have three wizards just hanging out together on a ship like this?”

She shrugs. “I thought passengers, maybe.”

“Like you.”

“Not like me.” There’s no one like her. No one who would go to sea to escape her real life and her real friends. “What kind of work do you do?”

“Oh, whatever Kensei finds us, really. Him n’ Shinji… they’re our de facto leaders. Not sure how thrilled they’d be I’m telling you this, o’ course, but Lisa seems to like you, so I’ll trust you.” He passes over the next stack of plates and adds, “Freight work is pretty reliable when work is light… but that’s not usually a problem. Not with our skills.”

And so she begins paying closer attention. Starts seeing things that aren’t on the surface. 

She sees Shinji flash the tarot cards before his face under a full moon, watches the orbs of arcane energy float around his head as the illusion magic shimmers. Behind him, Rose’s lute charms the waves and the stars to twist the light into an array of glitter and sparks. 

She sees Mashiro leap into the air, far too high to be based purely on athletics, streamers tied to her ankles and wrists as she falls. Another girl catches her, petite form laden with muscles, then sets her gently on the ground before breaking into a complex series of martial arts kicks and punches. Behind the pair of them, Love and a much larger man have a display of arcane flickers on display. And next to her, seated in front of the awe-struck group of sailors, Kensei crosses his arms and props up one leg and watches as well, eyes discerning and thoughtful.

“Illusions, barriers, enchantments, acrobatics… if it weren’t for your colleague, I’d think that you’re a traveling circus,” she reflects to Lisa later that night. Their hair is damp from their nightly shower; since she’d started this voyage, Lisa had found out about her trick for keeping clean and insisted on being in on it. 

“Oh, sure, and that’s how Shinji prefers to keep it,” Lisa says. “And sometimes we get hired for performances, no problem. But Kensei wants us practicing while we’re between jobs, so we like to work on moving as a team for shit like that.”

Rangiku looks around the room. “So what’s your trick, then?”

Lisa grins. “Baton-thrower,” she says, and from under her bed she pulls out a pole-arm taller than the door frame. On its tip gleams a spear-edge larger than her hand. “Just be glad I like you, Matsumoto-chan. Most people who see this baby, don’t live too long.”

* * *

Just as she learns about them, they learn some aspects of her as well.

It’s hardly a matter of necessity, but details of her life slip out. It’s healing, to be able to tell someone, “I needed to get away for awhile,” or ask, “has your friend ever been so much of an asshole that he had to die?” without feeling obligated to get into it, and without having to justify herself yet again.

“You should talk to Shinji, about your asshole friend,” Lisa tells her. “He’s got all kinds of stories. Was your friend a wizard too?”

“No,” she says. Truth be told, she isn’t really sure  _what_ Gin was supposed to be, just that he’d flunked out of school to study some offshoot branch of theoretical alchemy. Or something like that. “Well, not exactly. He was into the arcane, that’s for sure.”

Come to think of it, he’d had his familiar, Shinso, since their school days. So she supposed that technically he  _had_ been a wizard right up to his dying day, even if he wasn’t into the traditional brand of magic.

“The arcane can fuck people up,” Lisa says. “Not you, obviously. But some people, they get power-hungry. They try to do shit they’re not supposed to do. They defy the laws of nature.”

“You could say that about anyone, though. Wizard or not.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Lisa sighs and stretches. “But megalomaniac wizards… they’re a lot harder to kill than megalomaniac normal people. That’s for sure.”

“You talk about it like you have some experience,” Rangiku says, crossing her arms and tactfully ignoring the fact that she herself also has some experience. 

“Yeah, well,” Lisa says. “Stuff happens when you’re a mercenary.”

Gin isn’t the only one she talks about, either. 

“I’m not sure it’s healthy,” she confides in Lisa, late one night. The occasional bobbing of their little cabin underfoot is the only reminder that they’ve been at sea for four weeks now. “I rely on him a lot, and vice versa, but he was leaning on me a whole lot, especially right after everything. And now, it doesn’t feel like he’s doing enough to return the favor.”

“Mmm,” says Lisa, who seems half asleep in her cot. Haineko leaps onto her chest in search of scratches on the chin. “It sounds like this Izuru isn’t really sure how to help you, honestly. Plus, if you’re always searching for an equal exchange of support in your relationships, you’ll never be happy, eh?”

Rangiku is silent, and after a while Lisa turns over onto her side. For a long while, they each lay in darkness, pretending to sleep.

Finally, Rangiku dares admit, “Maybe I was a bit unfair to him,” and Haineko, now curled under her arm, purrs in response. By this time, though, Lisa is breathing deeply, and so the only solace Rangiku has left is her own thoughts, running circles in her brain.

* * *

There are the normal days, and there is the day of the storm.

Rangiku wakes to the rocking of walls and the creaking of woodworks. Her heart jumps in her chest, and Haineko yowls at the door. Yowls to be let out.

Rangiku sits up, the darkness pressing in around her, and hears Lisa sit as well. “What’s going on?” she asks, going for her coat and feeling for magic in her palm. Four globules of light appear in midair. Lisa, her braid of hair a mess, looks just as bewildered as she feels.

They both move for the cabin door, but the floor bucks beneath them and sends them both sprawling and grasping for a solid handhold. Haineko manages to stay near the door, still yelping. “Quiet, would you?!”

“A storm, maybe?” Lisa reaches out for her own cloak. “If so, they’ll need us above deck.”

“Great,” she grates out. 

“Ever been on a ship in a storm?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“Well,” says Lisa. “You’re in for a treat.” And she opens the door, watching as Haineko darts out before them. “Assuming you make it through this one, of course.”

Outside the sky is a fucking mess. The two of them duck back inside as the wind whips the door right out of Lisa’s hand. Past it rushes a steady stream of water, into the vacant space, down the stairs. They can’t stay long, so they don’t. Into the storm they go.

Sea spray assaults them as they struggle their way across the deck. A sailor yells something at them, and it is lost entirely to the storm. The clouds are black, broken only by flashes of lightning. It looks like the dead of night. It’s not even dusk yet.

Rangiku can see Lisa’s mouth moving, her hands holding out a rope. She takes it. Lisa starts to wind one around her own waist, then begins a complicated sailing knot. A tether, to keep her from getting flung into the sea. Rangiku tries desperately to mimic her. The rope slips through her fingers; she knots it over and over and hopes it will hold fast.

They fight their way down the deck, to where Kensei is giving out orders. This is the first crisis Rangiku has seen him in; it suits him. Even with the storm drowning out his words, he communicates clearly to each and every sailor that heads his way.

When he notices Rangiku and Lisa from across the way, his mouth opens in an irritated shout. Not that they can hear him. “Give us something to do!” hollers Lisa back, cupping her mouth with her hand so her voice carries. “We’re not dying like sardines in a barrel!”

“ _Fine_ ,” he says, voice booming from two feet away. Full of ire, or fire, as ever. “Lisa, go help Shinji and Mashiro bail us out. We hit something. Midships, near the mess hall. Hurry.” She is gone before his mouth closes.

And then he turns to her. “You want something to do too?” The deck underfoot bucks and sways. She stumbles, and Kensei catches her hand. Pulls her back up like a sack of potatoes. “Here’s what you can do — stay here, and don’t get washed overboard.”

Lightning cracks! Waves toss! Floorboards creak! 

Even with Haineko somewhere in the nethers of the ship, cowering from the storm, Rangiku can feel her yowling in terror. She feels the same. She wants to flee. Back to bed, or back to shore. Anything but staying here.

She clings to the mast and watches Kensei step around her drenched form, past the puddled ropes on the deck, and toward the edge. It’s not safe! she wants to yell, but the storm swallows the words. He seems stone-like, even as torrents run down every living thing. 

Rose is there, too. Rangiku didn’t even see him emerge. Drenched though he is, his hair still seems to float around his head. Compared to Kensei’s purposeful, stony walk, Rose seems unbothered by the storm, practically floating across the deck.

A hand motion. A flash of purple light. “Kinshara!” his voice booms, a voice stronger than sound itself.

The egret appears. It flies up from the sea, drawing a curtain with its wings. And as it passes through the air, water pools above it, suspended. The creature dives away, swoops over the ship, takes a sheet of water with it. Rangiku stares in amazement as a handful of white feathers fall limp to the deck. Like a mirage, the rain domes above the ship, then siphons off in the egret’s trail. The only water droplets that hit the deck below are running out of strands of her own hair.

Thunder continues outside of the dome, and the waves still crash. But the deafening roar of raindrops is distant. Across the way, she hears Kensei say, “Finally. You coulda done that fifteen minutes ago.”

“I didn’t have the components ready,” he whines in response. “Do you know how hard it is to get the right proportions when the ship is like Love during sex?”

“Quiet,” Kensei says, narrowing his eyes at Rose. “Not everyone wants to hear you being indecent.”

Rangiku is too busy to prod that juicy bit of information right now. The egret is gone, so she searches. Follows it to the edge. Puts her hands on the railing to peer over.

She sees, at last, where all the water had gone. It swirls into the sea, folding into itself over and over again, convecting itself as it tries to pursue its summoner. It swirls and hisses like a great maw. The ship itself stands just on the edge of being pulled in.

“Ken-sei, we plugged the hole!” The voice of Mashiro resounds within the eye of the storm. Shinji and Lisa are not far behind; they look up from their vantage to the breaking clouds with wonder. “Did Rose do the thing? He did, didn’t he?”

“Yeah.” The storm still rages, Rangiku notices. Not over them, but around them, as if Rose has drawn a circle in the clouds. And in fact, he may have. “We can’t drop anchor, though, ‘specially if we still don’t know what hit us. We’ll have to keep casting.”

“Right, right,” Shinji says, rolling his eyes. “Ya know, you’re askin’ a lot of us, boss… That’s a lot of energy goes into quelling storms.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Love cuts in. His hair, heavy with rain, drips but still retains its shape. “Other than, you know, capsizing. This storm… it’s weird. Worse than the ones we usually see.”

Rangiku sighs and takes a moment to wring out her hair over the side. The whirlpool hasn’t subsided; if anything, it’s gotten stronger, bigger. “I can’t keep holding this…” She turns slightly to realize that it’s Rose. Composure shaken, he no longer has the aura of confidence from before. Instead, sweat begins to drip down his face.

“Shit,” Kensei says.

She turns back to the water, so she doesn’t see what happens next. Just hears another spell being cast, watches the torrent siphon away, and hears a rush of footsteps to the other end of the boat. A drenched egret flaps over the side, spattering them with seawater. Safe, for now.

But the storm is not done. It fights against its captor, sends the ship bucking. Sends her flying, then falling.

Matsumoto Rangiku clings onto her poor excuse for a security line, and then onto thin air, and then, finally, onto the tight noose of swirling, immeasurable water.

* * *

Cold. Dark. Pressure and noise.

She feels like her ears might burst. She kicks out, frantically beats toward the surface. What she hopes is the surface. Churning water, crashing against rock or wood or flesh. Darkness swallows her. 

The air in her lungs rots, then escapes in one great burst of open-mouthed panic. She squalls against the rush of seawater in her mouth, hands curling into claws as she writhes. 

It is endless. The maw of a great shark, inescapable.

She wanted so much, she thinks. She wanted to be loved, adored. To be free and yet wanted. She was hungry for all life had. But now, she could die happy with just a single breath.

_Gin?  
_

_Is that you?_

Something jagged brushes her arm. Once, twice. Seaweed, perhaps, strains around her ankle. All she can think as she is dragged down into the dark is how simply insistent her anchor is.

* * *

Everything is unthinkably still forever. When the stillness stops, the pain begins. Pain everywhere — her lungs; her legs; her head. 

The first thing she feels other than pain is scratching against her cheek. Rangiku cracks one eye open to find Haineko licking her with a rough, pink tongue. The cat lets out a chirrup as her eyes open a little wider. 

“Where… are we?” she tries to say, but all that comes out is a harsh croak, leading to a coughing attack. Rangiku rolls onto her side to accommodate the rush of water that her body wants to expel from her lungs, much too fast. 

When she has finished, the deluge of seawater from her stomach and lungs drips off a rock in front of her. She blinks and squints. The sun is high, unmarred by clouds, and Rangiku can see tropical trees in the distance. Here, though, the sun is warm but the stone underneath her is cold. 

She sits up, very slowly. The sun is high, suggesting it is midmorning. She can feel a light breeze, which normally might feel good against her sun-soaked skin but now has a touch of arctic chill in it. Behind her, a grove of jungle vegetation outcrops against a sandy beach, then the sea.

In front of her, though, the tropical undergrowth becomes temperate, as does the water. Her feet could dangle over the edge into a crystal pool, deep and clear. She reaches down and touches the water with one fingertip; icy cold.

“Haineko, how did you get here?” She reaches out to scratch the familiar’s chin. The cat had hidden on the ship, not been at the edge of the deck with her. Haineko is afraid of water. There is no reason for her to have ended up going overboard — and certainly no reason to expect that a cat familiar would have been able to survive the experience.

Familiars… they’re a strange lot. Hard to kill, but not unheard of. They can be remade, but usually not without their creator undergoing a period of deep grief and heartache. Not to mention, creating one familiar can shorten a lifespan by years. Creating a second, or even a third, could only decrease it further. Any ‘expensive’ magic, really, could be a sieve against the soul.

Back to the situation at hand. She’s alive. Somehow. And on land. An island? She doubts that she’s somehow made it back to mainland, or at least back to any mainland that she recognizes. Worse, her spell book and bag of components were on that ship, meaning that she can’t cast anything that she can’t remember off the top of her head, or anything that requires something rarer than a pinch of salt or a handful of ashes. 

The long and short of it is, she’s stranded.

Sighing, she lets her feet fall over the edge into the pool as she absently scratches Haineko’s ears. Soon she will need to get up and make some kind of plan. She’s an enchanter, not an expert by any means, and she doesn’t know enough about the other branches of magic to dabble. That means she’s going to have to survive the old fashioned way — her hands and arms and pure grit. Not just survive, but thrive. Escape.

Ironic, really. She’d gone on this adventure to escape her monotony and her memories, and now she’s trapped with them, with the added bonus of figuring out how to survive. 

All at once, the peaceful, still water of the pool erupts in a explosion of water. “Ahh!” Rangiku shrieks, stumbling back from the edge. Haineko hisses and darts into the bushes nearby. Rangiku is tempted to run as well, but something keeps her still.

There is a  _creature_ there, perched just feet away from where the two of them had just been. Not just a creature, either. In the time it takes to observe, Rangiku sees just a flash of white, of scales and fins, of gills. But there are humanoid features there too — fingers, though clawed at the end, and the face, neck and torso of a human woman. The creature opens its —  _her_ — eyes, and all Rangiku can see is a deep, vibrant indigo.

As she pulls herself onto the bank, though, her most striking feature becomes apparent — a tail, starting where her hips might be, spattered with glittery white scales as pristine as an arctic landscape.

“Siren,” Rangiku whispers, just as she turns her face toward her.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like what I'm doing here, please consider giving me Kudos or even a comment!


End file.
